


A Gift From Me to You

by violasarecool



Series: What Can 8 Grey Wardens Do? [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bonding, Fluff, Gen, short alcoholism mention (Oghren)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:27:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5857666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violasarecool/pseuds/violasarecool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>what starts for Quentin as a single impulse gift turns into something of a tradition of showering his companions with gifts at every opportunity</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gift From Me to You

You've set up camp, resting after a long day walking and fighting darkspawn. You sit just outside your tent, sorting through supplies, and miscellani you've picked up since the last time you had the chance to sell the extraneous things to a merchant. Your hand brushes cold thin metal, and you pick it up, the silver chain hanging from your hand. You look up, across the fire, at where Morrigan sits, a ways away. On impulse, you stand, and make your way over.

"Hello," she says, as you approach. "Do you need something?"

You shake your head. "I just wanted to give you this."

"Give me...?" Morrigan watches as you hold out your hand, silver pooled in your palm. "What's this?" she asks, but she takes it, looking at the necklace in bewilderment.

"A necklace," you say, grinning when Morrigan rolls her eyes.

"I can see that. Why are you giving me this?"

You shrug. "I thought you might like it. You wear such nice jewelry."

"And what would I need with more?" She stares at it, frowning. "Thank you, I suppose."

"You're welcome," you say, turning to return to your task. As you walk, you pause, and glance back. Morrigan holds the necklace up, staring at it uncertainly. Then, she undoes the clasp, and closes it around her neck, smiling.

* * *

You stumble on groups of darkspawn frequently, incidents that punctuate your travels like panic attacks (though given the choice, you prefer the darkspawn). You're just leaving the Circle when you're ambushed by a small group of gemlocks.

You and your companions fall into an attack formation that keeps developing the more people join your group: Sten and Alistair at the forefront, Wynne, Morrigan and yourself behind (until Morrigan tires of long-distance combat and shapeshifts into a spider or a bear), Leliana and Zevran on the fringe. There aren't more than a dozen darkspawn, and you take them out quickly. When the last gemlock has fallen, you scout the area nearby to make sure there aren't more in hiding.

"Over here." Leliana's voice carries in the silence, and one by one you follow the sound to its source.

She's standing by an overturned wagon, surrounded by crates. "Any sign of the owner?" Alistair asks. She points wordlessly at a pair of human bodies lying a few feet away.

"Oh."

You kneel down by one of the crates, checking the contents. "Looks like they were merchants," you say, "either that, or they were hoarding a _lot_ of trap and potion making supplies." You push aside another broken crate, then stop as something glints in the wreckage. You reach down and pull out a small bar of gold. You stand up. "Hey, Zevran, catch."

"Hmm?" He looks up, then holds out a hand and you gently toss the bar to him.

"Looks like we found one of your true loves in this smashed up wagon," you say.

He laughs. "Ah, yes, gold. Second only to what pleasures you may use it to purchase."

"Better put it to good use, then," you say.

* * *

You're on the road when you meet a travelling merchant, a surface dwarf with a large cart pulled by an ox. You politely peruse his selection of armour before restocking on potions (it's a good thing you ran into him, because you were close to running out). You've already paid for the potions when you notice a pair of shoes sitting near the back of the cart, pale blue, with ribbons hanging off them. The decorative gold trim around the edges remind you of the stories Leliana tells around the campfire, of Orlesian nobles and extravagant finery.

"Those shoes are made with real satin," the merchant says, nodding. "Got 'em off a woman in Denerim. Honestly not sure if she made 'em herself, though she was a decent cobbler. And look," he leans over, picks up one of the shoes, "the charms are little dogs."

You peer at them more closely. Sure enough, the gold charms are actually tiny puppies.

"An excellent gift for any lady friends," he says, winking.

When you rejoin the others, you hold the shoes behind your back, several silvers poorer. "Hey, Leliana."

She looks up at you. "Yes?"

"I found something for you." You hold out the shoes, watching as her expression turns to surprise.

"Quentin! You didn't need to... wow." She takes them in her hands, turning them over, trailing her fingers along the gold trim and shiny ribbons. "Are these... dogs?" She looks closely at the tiny gold charms. "Oh my goodness, they _are."_

You smile. "You like them?"

"Very much," Leliana says.

"I'm kind of offended you didn't buy _me_ shoes with dogs on them," Alistair says.

You laugh. "Maybe next time."

* * *

Later, you find Alistair's mother's amulet in Arl Eamon's study, and while Alistair repeatedly professes his gratitude that you found it for him, it doesn't really feel like a gift. After all, it was his to begin with. Finding a gift that would actually mean something to him proves to be difficult, however. It's not until he shows you a small carving of a woman he picked up when you were in Lothering that you begin to have an idea.

Of course, now that you know what kind of thing you're looking for, you don't seem to see anything like it. You keep an eye out for similar statuettes every time you encounter a merchant, sometimes even stopping multiple in a day, causing your companions to start to question why you didn't pick up supplies from the _last_ merchant you talked to. Your excuse of bad memory causes Zevran to start accompanying you when you pick up supplies. You confess your dilemma, swearing him to secrecy. He laughs, but agrees.

You finally have a bit of luck when you visit the Dalish clan in the Brecilian forest. You notice an elf woman sitting in a pile of wood shavings, a half-complete wooden statuette of some kind of demon in her hands. The details are incredible, tiny spikes protruding from its scaley back. "That's amazing," you say, and she smiles.

"I have completed pieces in my tent, if you have coin," she says.

As you leave the Dalish camp, you pat your bag, making sure the statuette you ended up buying is still there. It's a stone carving, the elegant curves of a snarling dragon carved into dark onyx. You give it to Alistair as you walk, smiling as he turns it, marvelling at the tiny details.

"Where did you get this?" he asks, touching the dragon's ridged back. "It's incredibly detailed, I've never seen one like it."

"One of the Dalish made it. She had a bunch of them, they were really well-made."

"No kidding," Alistair says. "Thank you, I'll take good care of it."

* * *

The easiest one of your companions to please is, without a doubt, your dog. No matter how long a day you've had, or how many darkspawn have taken a swipe at him, Cerberus always greets you with a happy bark, tail wagging frantically. His enthusiasm is sometimes almost too much, if only because he has bowled you over more times than you can count. Alistair likes to make fun of you when this happens, but then, Cerberus has knocked him over a couple times when Alistair got between him and his food, so you console yourself that no one's strong enough to hold up against your rambunctious dog anyway. Except maybe Sten. But Sten is huge, and for some reason, Cerberus never jumps up at Sten.

In any case, Cerberus receives by far the most gifts, partly because he's so easy to please―picking up a lamb bone from a butcher will always result in a very happy Cerberus. (And a lot of face licking.) With so much uncertainty about your continued existence in the face of the blight, it's nice to have that guarantee that Cerberus will love you no matter what, old lamb bones included.

* * *

Thinking about gifts for Wynne reminds you of your time in the Circle. You spent a significant amount of time together for an apprentice and senior mage who weren't assigned to each other, and you cringe to think of the number of hand-made knick knacks you gave her as a small child growing up in the tower.

That being said, having spent most of your life at least in her general vicinity does mean you know her significantly better than your other companions. You know she prefers to keep herself busy―the fact that she not only fought at Ostagar, but then decided to come with you instead of staying to help rebuild the Circle is evidence enough of that. This isn't news to you, though. She told you once that the Circle had tried many times convince her to take up the role of First Enchanter once Irving had retired from the position. When you said that she would be good at it, she smiled, and said it was too much sitting around doing paperwork for her taste.

You also know, however, that keeping herself busy doesn't always mean magic and fighting―sometimes you would find her curled up in a chair with a glass of wine and a book. When you were younger, she found the time to read aloud to you; later, she would recommend books for you to read. Your hungry curiosity meant that even outside of the dusty volumes you were required to study as part of your training, you often spent hours pouring over books she had recommended. Your particular favourites were those that told wild tales about figures of history or mythology.

It's a book of that genre that ends up in Wynne's hands one night as you sit around the fire (after you've read it cover to cover, and then gone back to reread a few sections). "The Search for the True Prophet", she reads aloud, the title imprinted in the slightly charred leather binding.

"I'm not sure how trustworthy its sources are," you say, shrugging, "but it's absolutely fascinating to read. The author suggests that Andraste may have actually been an extremely powerful mage."

Wynne raises her eyebrows. "Really." She opens the book to a random page, gazing at the text. "It appears that someone did not agree with its contents," she says with a smile, fingering a charred edge.

"There's always someone," you say. "Anyway, I just thought you might find it interesting."

"Oh, absolutely," she says, "thank you, I may start on it tonight."

"Tell me what you think, when you do," you say, as Alistair and Zevran make their way over with more firewood.

* * *

It's a long time before you get much more out of Sten than monotone responses that dance around what you say as if trying to evade the probing of an annoying child. Which, initially, may be how he views you. It seems entirely likely. As you travel and fight together, though, he gradually opens up a _little_ more, at least to the point where you're sure he's not being purposefully hostile in what little he does say. Generally, he just doesn't speak unless absolutely necessary, and so you slowly tease small tidbits of information out of him, how he came to Ferelden, what his home was like, how he believes that fate decides each and every person's role from birth (a point of view that, to you, doesn't seem too different than the multitudes of those who believe the Maker controls their fate). When he tells you he enjoys cookies, you make a point of stopping at a bakery in the next town to buy some for everyone.

One particularly interesting conversation you have with him is about... painting. You never had the opportunity to see much art, except for a few paintings hung on the bare stone walls of the Circle. Sten, however, seems extremely impressed by the skill it takes to create a painting. He compares a steady brush hand to a steady sword arm, and talks about discipline, and technique. It's the longest conversation you've had with him since you met him, and possibly the most animated you've seen him. You decide that you want to give him a painting or two of his own.

Of course, acquiring a piece of _art_ is no small feat, and while you _have_ come across a painting or two on your travels, you're not sure such a thing would hold up to the rigours of travelling and fighting as you zigzag across Ferelden. Luckily for you, one merchant seems to have considered this, and when you reluctantly decline her named price on one such painting, she stops you mid-explanation, and holds up a small tube of hardened leather.

"If you're worried about transporting it," she says, "you can roll it up and put it in this. The paint on that piece is thin, so it won't crack, and the leather will protect the paper from jostling."

"Really? That would be great," you say.

When you present the leather tube to Sten, he's momentarily confused, but gently extracts the paper at your prompting. When he unrolls the painting, he's silent for a moment, eyes taking it in critically. The figure on the paper stares back at him, her red hair tumbling in the wind, feet planted on an overturned chariot. A moment painted into stillness. "You wish my opinion?" he asks. "It is very good. The colour is somewhat dull, but the composition is excellent. The cloud formation on the right is mirrored in the man by her feet," he says, pointing at the body lying in front of the chariot. He looks up at you. "What is this painting intended for?"

"It's for you," you say. "A gift."

He glances back down at it. "Thank you."

* * *

Shale, you discover, is fond of precious stones. You feel like you should have guessed at this sooner, but not having encountered many golems, well, _any_ golems before, you hope it's not a completely unforgiveable lapse in judgement. You quickly make up for this by making a point of showering her with every gem you can find―within reason, of course, as you just as quickly discover that some gems are _extremely expensive._

"Diamonds are worth _how_ much?" you exclaim.

Leliana laughs. "It depends on the quality and size, but some of the ones that I've seen could cost as much as 8 or ten gold pieces."

" _Why?_ They look just like quartz!" 

"They're much rarer," she says, "and also harder. Good craftsmen can use them to cut through really hard material."

And you can understand why _that_ would be useful, anyway. But other rare gems, like Saphire, and Topaz, have no practical use, and while you understand that people like pretty things, the cost just seems excessive. Shale seems to like whatever you give her, though, so you cover her rocky surface with everything from pocked greenstone to shiny quartz and fluorspar, and when you have a little extra gold, malachite, and amethyst. Wynne or Leliana will often come help you, rearranging your haphazard attempts into something a little more coordinated. And when Shale stands in the sunlight, she positively glitters, the sun reflecting colourful rays of light onto the ground around her.

(When you eventually defeat the Archdemon, you find yourself showered with gold, and you find Shale a diamond just for the fun of it. Despite being prepared for the cost, it is still surprisingly tiny for your 7 gold pieces.)

* * *

The last to join your party, Oghren's passion is, first and foremost, for anything alcoholic. He can frequently be found sitting in camp nursing a jar of something amber coloured, or clear bottles so small that you're not sure if they're extremely expensive, or extremely potent. Possibly both. He drinks during the day as well, telling loud stories that often end in him laughing so hard he can't finish, and the rest of you wondering what the punchline was. Really, he's so frequently drunk you're not really sure where he gets it all from. But overall, he's usually passably sober, and it never seems to get in the way of his fighting, so you figure it can't be too much of a problem.

Sometimes, when passing through cities, you encounter bars, loud and crowded and smelling of sweat. Of course, you've been into a few bars on business previously, and even accompanied Alistair for a drink in a small local bar. You don't mind the taste of ale, but the experience isn't really anything exciting. Going to bars with Oghren, however, is something else entirely.

Oghren is a chatty drunk, you learn, which is isn't _exactly_ surprising. He's never been shy about sharing his thoughts, even at the most inopportune moments. What you weren't prepared for was the quiet buffer period, the period of silence when he sits wordlessly with his first drink with all the air of a monk at worship. After that, though, he quickly gets much louder. He attracts drinking partners like Cerberus attracts burrs, stumbling into them rather than seeking them out, leaving you to pick them off him at the end of the night before you turn in. (And sometimes you get pricked for the attempt). Unlike burrs, though, they can be fun while it lasts. You have to admit, there's something thrilling about being crowded around a small table, shouting yourself hoarse as Oghren faces off the heaviest drinker he can find in drinking games.

In any case, Oghren claims there's nothing he wants other than alcohol, so you buy him drinks, accompany him to bars (which is as much a gift to you as to him), and sometimes pick up bottles of interesting looking liquor to give him. It doesn't seem like much, but if it makes him happy, you're happy to do it.

* * *

As you get to know these people, these wonderful people who've dedicated themselves to helping you defend Ferelden against the blight, you find yourself noticing things that remind you of your friends everywhere: a holy symbol for Leliana, a mirror for Morrigan, a wooden totem for Sten. You give Zevran a pair of leather gloves and boots that he puts on immediately and never takes off, you give Wynne a ball of yarn so she can knit something for Alistair, introduce Sten to cakes and pastries.

You're going through your bag, one day, untangling clumps of elfroot from various trinkets, when Zevran sits beside you. "Sorting out the mess?" he says, and you nod. "You do carry a lot of things in that bag." He picks up a small brass locket, turns it in his hand. "I have not seen this before."

You shrug. "I found it yesterday."

"Ah." He sets it down, watches you pick through the mess. "You know, I do not believe anything here has been in your bag for more than a few days, except perhaps some of the potions. Do you ever keep anything?"

"I have a book from Wynne. I roll it up with my bedroll, though." You brush the dirt off of a dark grey rune. "Mages don't have a lot of possessions, as a general rule. Especially ones who come to the Circle when they're very young." You run your hands through the pile of junk, and smile. "It's a good thing, really, I wouldn't want more to carry around."

"Hm." He watches you continue to pick through the mess. "You know, I do not believe that I have ever repaid you for these delightful boots and gloves you gave me."

You frown. "That was a gift, Zevran, you don't have to _repay_ me."

He doesn't reply, but hums to himself, smiling.

The next day, while you're looking around a small town, Zevran disappears for a while. When he returns, you can't help but notice that he seems very... pleased with himself.

"Where have you been?" you ask.

"You remember what I said yesterday? I have made a few purchases," he replies. "Ah, ah," he says, as you frown, "let me finish before you berate me for ignoring your instruction not to repay you. Am I not allowed to present my own gift?"

"I suppose," you reply, somewhat suspiciously.

"You do not trust me? Then perhaps I have made the wrong decision," he teases.

You shoot him a look. "Are you going to tell me what you bought?"

"All in good time, my friend, I shall tell you in a moment. First, do you remember when you asked about some of my tattoos, oh, perhaps a month ago?"

"Yeah?"

"I believe your comment was that you would not mind something similar at some point in the future. Is this still the case?"

You raise your eyebrows. "Did you... Are you...?"

"Am I offering? Yes." He pats his bag. "I have reaquired some ink and tools suitable to do the job, if you like. Consider it a gift that will not further clutter your bag."

You blink, words failing. "I... don't know what to say." It occurs to you that not even a month ago Zevran had fielded Alistair's comment about getting a tattoo from Zevran with a remark that Alistair surely didn't trust him with sharp objects in his skin.

He tilts his head, gauging your reaction. "Yes or no will do."

"Yes," you say. You would have trusted him to do as much months ago.

"Excellent," he says, grinning, and you can't help but grin back. "We should think about designs, yes? You know, I once knew a dwarven woman with a wolf tattoo'd on her posterior. Accentuated it beautifully." You scrunch up your face, and he laughs. "All right, all right, nothing below the belt. Perhaps something on your arm? I would not recommend it to any of our friends with armour, but with your robes, it would hardly rub at all."

"Hm." You start walking again, keeping an eye out for Wynne and Morrigan. "Could you do something simple to start, just like a curved line, maybe?"

"Similar to what I have? Yes, I can see that. Curling around your wrist like a bracelet, perhaps."

"That would be cool." You spot Morrigan halfway down the street, and wave. She calls to Wynne, and they make their way over. "Thank you, by the way," you say, as you wait for them to reach you. "I don't think I said that."

"You should not thank me yet," Zevran says, "it has been so long since I've created a tattoo, you may end up with a terrible mess and regret agreeing to it at all." You laugh. "But still, you are most welcome."


End file.
